by Jeffrey Greene, Partner in the Employment & Benefits Department, William Fry
On 10 May 2022, the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth published guidance for employers on how to calculate their gender pay gap metrics (the Guidance) as required under the Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 (the Act).
The Act provides the legislative basis for gender pay gap (GPG) reporting in Ireland and requires organisations to report on their GPG across a range of metrics. While more detailed and binding Regulations under the Act are still awaited, the Guidance sets out a “suggested approach” to calculating GPG metrics to facilitate relevant employers’ compliance preparations ahead of the first reporting deadline in December 2022.
The Guidance suggests employers choose a “snapshot date” in June 2022 and report on relevant employees employed on that date. The GPG reporting deadline for relevant employers will be six months after the organisation’s chosen snapshot date, namely sometime in December 2022, and the first reporting period will be the 12-month period immediately preceding and including the chosen snapshot date. Employers with over 250 relevant employees on the snapshot date will be required to report on their GPG in December 2022. GPG reporting obligations will extend to employers with over 150 employees from 2024, and to employers with over 50 employees from 2025.
Calculation of GPG Metrics
The Guidance suggests employers calculate the total ordinary pay of each relevant person employed on the chosen snapshot date, in addition to their total bonus pay, total benefits-in-kind and their total hours worked for the reporting period. Employers can then proceed to calculate the percentage of male and female employees who were paid bonuses and who received benefits in kind.
Employers will also need to gather information relating to which employees were full-time employees, part-time employees or on temporary contracts during their reporting period.
To calculate the GPG metrics for the organisation, the Guidance suggests that employers organise employees into quartiles, based on the hourly remuneration of all male and female full-time employees and calculate the proportions of male and female employees in each quartile. This will involve ranking employees based on their hourly remuneration from lowest to highest and then dividing that list into four quartiles. Employers must express as a percentage the proportion of male and female employees in each quartile.
Employers can then calculate the mean and median hourly remuneration of male and female employees and the GPG in the mean and median hourly remuneration of all employees. This calculation will also be required in respect of part-time employees and employees on temporary contracts. Finally, employers must calculate the GPG in mean and median bonus remuneration of all employees.
Next Steps
As this is completely new for many employers and is not a quick exercise, it is recommended that employers start as soon as possible to put in place their plans for calculating GPG metrics, whether that means ensuring that their existing operations/HR data and staff can produce the required GPG report, or by contracting with a suitable service provider.
The Guidance is available here.
About the author
Jeffrey Greene is a Partner in William Fry’s Employment & Benefits Department and advises on all contentious and non-contentious employment law matters. He specialises in advising public and private sector organisations on the employment law aspects of corporate transactions, restructurings, and outsourcings, with a particular expertise in Transfer of Undertakings (TUPE) matters.
Jeffrey also advises clients on all aspects of employment, employment equality, and industrial relations law, and has acted for clients before all the Irish courts and employment law forums. He is heavily involved in the firm’s FDI focus as well as with start-up companies.
